Reza Dana, MD, MSc, MPH

Dr. Reza Dana is Director of the Cornea and Refractive Surgery Service at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Claes H. Dohlman Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dana is a clinician scientist who, as an ophthalmologist and an immunologist, has a particular interest in the molecular and cellular mechanisms of inflammation as they pertain to ocular surface and anterior segment pathologies, including dry eye, allergy, wound healing responses, and transplant rejection. He is aslo a Senior Scientist and W. Clement Stone Scholar at Mass. Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Research Institute, a member of the Committee on Immunology at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Harvard-Vision Clinical Scientist Development Program.

After graduating summa cum laude from St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH, Dr. Dana received his undergraduate (Phi Beta Kappa), graduate, and medical education from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. After an internship in Internal Medicine, he performed his residency in Ophthalmology at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary in Chicago. This was followed by a clinical fellowship in Cornea and External Diseases at The Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. Subsequently, Dr. Dana came to Boston for additional fellowship training in Immunology and Uveitis at Mass. Eye and Ear, and in Ocular and Transplantation Immunology at Mass. Eye and Ear/Schepens, where he was supported by both a Heed Fellowship and an Individual NIH-National Research Service Award grant. Additionally, Dr. Dana holds a MSc degree in Management from Harvard University.

Dr. Dana’s research is supported by R01 funding from the NIH in addition to grants from private research foundations, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, the US Department of Defense, and the Harvard Department of Ophthalmology Joint Clinical Research Center. Dr. Dana has authored over 190 peer-reviewed articles, reviews and book chapters (58), and has given more than 100 invited and named lectures worldwide. In addition, he served as editor of the "Eye and Systemic Disease" volume of The Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology and served as member of the faculty of the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Basic Clinical and Science Course where he is responsible for content in Cornea and External Diseases—the principal teaching tool for the thousands of American ophthalmology residents. He is Senior Editor of the Encyclopedia of the Eye. Additionally, Dr. Dana is on the editorial board of the journals Cornea, The Ocular Surface, and Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. He is a recipient of multiple awards, including the Research to Prevent Blindness William and Mary Greve Special Scholar Award and Physician-Scientist Merit Award, the Achievement Award of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and the Cogan Award of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology for his contributions to the field of ophthalmology and ophthalmic science.

Clinical Interests

Corneal diseases and transplantation, inflammatory corneal disorders, ocular surface reconstruction, corneal stem cells and surgery, clinical trials

Research Interests

Corneal diseases and transplantation, dry eye syndrome, inflammatory corneal disorders, corneal stem cells, clinical trials

Publications

For a full publication list, please see his CV. A representative list (2006 - 2012) is available through www.pubmed.

Cursiefen C, Chen L, Saint-Geniez M, Hamrah P, Jin Y, Rashid S, Pytowski B, Persaud K, Wu Y, Streilein JW, Dana R. Nonvascular VEGF receptor 3 expression by corneal epithelium maintains avascularity and vision. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2006 Jul 25; 103(30): 11405-10.

Goyal S, Chauhan SK, Zhang Q, Dana R. Amelioration of murine dry eye disease by topical antagonist to chemokine receptor 2. Arch Ophthalmol. 2009 Jul; 127 (7) :882-7.

Jin Y, Chauhan SK, Annan JE, Sage PT, Sharpe AH, Dana R. A novel function for programmed death ligand-1 regulation of angiogenesis. Am J Pathol. 2011 Apr; 178(4): 1922-9.

Fuchsluger TA, Jurkunas U, Kazlauskas A, Dana R. Corneal endothelial cells are protected from apoptosis by gene therapy. Hum Gene Ther. 2011 May; 22(5): 549-58.

Goyal S, Chauhan SK, Dana R. Blockade of prolymphangiogenic Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor C in dry eye disease. Arch Ophthalmol. 2012 Jan; 130(1): 84-9.

Page updated: January 16, 2013